Texan post-hardcore lords Underoath have been busy bees of late. Having barely caught their breath from their recent live-streamed extravaganza, the group have absolutely blindsided fans with a brand new track. And by the sounds of things, with the rate at which ‘Damn Excuses’ came to fruition, the band were somewhat blindsided themselves.
“This song came out of nowhere for us,” keyboardist Chris Dudley explains of the sessions. “In hindsight, it probably stems emotionally from the anxiousness that a year of isolation will give you, and that ‘wanting-to-explode’ feeling came out with zero effort. It was therapeutic. This is us ready to get back into a loud room with sweaty people and experience something real together.”
That manic energy seeps through the song, which is rife with rapid energy changes, sudden turns, and unpredictable peaks and troughs. Having said that, rather than coming off as a discombobulated mess, ‘Damn Excuses’ is a modern masterpiece – a reflection of the current state of things and a cohesive, tight two-and-a-half-minute representation of what just about all of us have felt at some stage or another over the last 12 months, and what a hell of a lot of Australians are feeling right at this moment.
‘Damn Excuses’ was written, recorded, and produced by the band themselves at guitarist Tim McTague’s studio, Feral Sound, in Tampa, Florida. The single is the first outing from the band since 2018’s Grammy-nominated fan-favourite reunion record Erase Me, and follows on from their recent critically-acclaimed Observatory livestream experience, which was praised for infinitely raising the standards of the whole livestream deal.
